The Joker: Legacy of Laughter
by Bee Czar
Summary: (Vignette) The Joker wasn't a mere man. He was an infestation.


**Disclaimer: Batman is (c) DC Comics.**

**The Joker: Legacy of Laughter**

**(A Vignette)**

Batman was at his wit's end.

He still couldn't figure out the nature of The Joker...s. Time and time again, it didn't matter if The Joker was locked up, missing, or killed in action...the clown always persisted.

Because there always more than one of him.

Or would the proper word usage be "them"?

At any rate, the Bat had been aware of one certain thing about The Joker practically from the start. The Joker wasn't a mere man, he was an infestation.

In the summer of 1981, Gotham City was an experiencing immense political tension between the city's rich elite and the city's destitute and poor. The already volatile situation exploded when a GCPD officer shot an unarmed protester on the subway which triggered a city-wide riot. Which, in turn, culminated in two key events in particular:

1\. Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down during the riot, leaving Bruce Wayne to be raised by his butler Alfred Pennyworth.

2\. Arthur Fleck, the first to take on the mantle of The Joker, appears in full colorful regalia on _Murray Franklin Tonight _making full confession to the murder of three Wayne Enterprises executives and proceeding to execute Murray Franklin on live television.

Arrested by dawn on the following day, Arthur Fleck is committed to Arkham Psychiatric Hospital where he stays for seven years.

Following that...well...

There was the case of Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska. Twins born into a traveling circus. Twins born into an abusive family that was always on the road.

Jerome kicked puppies and kittens for a hoot.

Jeremiah dissected cats and dogs out of scientific curriousity. Just to see how their bodies worked.

The Bat had squared off against both of them before his true identity had taken shape. Back when there was no Bat. Just Bruce.

Memories of those encounters still surfaced every now and then.

The night when he fought Jerome, who was trying to keep his face stapled on, in a hall of mirrors.

The night when he watched Jeremiah slipped from a catwalk and plummeted into a vat in Ace Chemicals.

The Valeska Brothers were still around, but presumably kept under strict lock and key along with 24/7 video monitoring. And kept in a facility that could never be compromised thanks to Amanda Waller.

Well, not as compromised as Arkham was.

Jack Napier. The Fourth Joker. A former mob enforcer. Slain by Andrea Beaumont AKA The Phantasm.

John Doe. A smiling schizophrenic prone to brutal breakdowns.

Jospeh Kerr. Domestic Abuser and Obsessive Compulsive. Presumed dead after falling down into a factory smokestack.

There were even peculiar anomalies in other parts of the world concerning The Joker as well.

Jarvis Poker in London. A harmless, comical "cover version" of The Joker.

"The Man Who Laughs" in Paris.

Over and over...

So very long ago, Jerome Valeska always preached of himself being an Idea made flesh, blood, and bone. Something that would always last. Something that would inspire others and fuel nightmares in the sleeping minds of the innocent. Something eternal.

Everybody wrote it all off as the delusions of a lunatic.

Bruce Wayne/ The Batman wasn't so sure anymore.

It was one thing to be an inspiration to other murderers and mad people.

It was another for murderers and mad people to be fundamentally the same person even with the slight differences. Which was why most people chose to believe that The Joker was a singular person. A clown that came back to terrorize the streets of Gotham no matter how many times it seemed like he was down for the count.

But The Bat knew better.

The Joker was many.

Not in the sense of others foolishly taking up the mantle.

The Joker was a virus that could not be cured or eliminated.

The Joker was a persona dreamed up in urban legend and made real through the paranoia and fears and sickness in the beating heart of Gotham City itself.

It truly didn't seem like there was anything that The Batman could do to stop it. Thus, Batman was just stuck in this...loop of leaving of The Joker on the doorstep of Arkham Asylum, orderlies would collect him, strap onto a gurney, and wheel The Joker off to where the Asylum always kept him.

Down a hall...

Into a secret corridor that only a select few (outside of hospital staff) knew about.

To reach a cell block filled hysterical, wheezing, painful laughter coming from each and every cell.

Celebrating another new yet old arrival.


End file.
